Wages of hubris

It is not unlikely that some Nigerians would pass off the controversies surrounding the purchase of two choice BMW cars by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as needless storm over nothing. I must confess that few of those I shared my thoughts with on the matter in the course of the weekend couldn’t understand what the matter was let alone be bothered.

For some, the problem was the newshounds. Supposing the purchase was captured in the NCAA budget? How are we to know that the $1.6 million (N225 million) cost was outrageous? Do we have evidence that procurement rules were not followed? And should these suffice to stoke the furore that we have seen since the news broke?

In any case, isn’t that the way the business of governance is conducted in these parts?

I understand why many Nigerians, long inured to malfeasances by public officials would see nothing wrong with a minister directing a parastatal under her watch to purchase her fancy auto for her exclusive use. The development, in my view, not only underlies the grave crisis of values governing public service, but is at the heart of the crisis of governance.

I have taken good look at the rationalisation offered by Joe Obi, Stella Oduah’s Special Assistant on Media few days after the scandal broke. It provided a good window into the hubris that has become the driver of governance, a measure of the extent to which the cancer gnawing slowly at the heart of the nation’s soul has come to metastasise.

“Yes” offered Obi, “some security vehicles were procured for the use of the office of the honourable minister in response to the clear and imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector”.

And he would further supply the context: “When she came on board as the minister, she inherited a lot of baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria. And so, she took bold steps and some of these agreements were reviewed and some were terminated, and these moves disturbed some entrenched interests in the sector, and within this period, she began to receive some imminent threats to her life; therefore, the need for the vehicles”.

And as if to reassure Nigerians of his boss’ good faith, he asserts: “It should be noted that these vehicles are not personal vehicles and were not procured in the name of the honourable minister; they are utility vehicles and are for the office of the minister, and if she leaves the office, she will not be taking the vehicles along with her.”

In this, Obi is at least more truthful than Yakubu Datti, the so-called coordinating spokesperson for aviation parastatals who, without thinking, simply dismissed the report as lacking in substance – something beneath his principal, who owned barges and depots before accepting the lowly job of minister of the republic!

Do you, dear reader, detect the hubris a la Obi? Note the phrase “imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector”; add to it the claim of inherited “baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria” and the picture of what is the minister’s oftentimes misguided if not entirely misdirected activism comes revealed.

So, for personal security, a lone, reform-minded minister would be rewarded with prized toys of two bullet-proof BMW 760 Li cars worth $1.6 million drawn from the coffers of cash-starved NCAA, cars that some say should have cost no more than $40,000 apiece! That is how to run a self-help republic!

How about the minister’s two-pronged self-help of shunting aside the justice ministry and the police in her self-consuming messianic mission to change the face of aviation for good? How about casting herself as lone star in the cabinet of dunderheads? What does it say about self-help being acceptable when public funds are involved?

The problem here is that the minister merely acted in ways typical of public officers who have come to see parastatals as their pot of fortune. Don’t forget, this particular minister has never been known to be a fan of due process. If you recall, she it was who jettisoned all known niceties of due process and financial regulations in pursuit of her dream of airport modernisation? Does anyone now remember her tango with aviation stakeholders over unilateral expenditure of BASA funds outside the strictures of parliamentary appropriation? Is the minister not simply treading a familiar path here?

Now the onus is on her to explain the utmost secrecy surrounding the transaction and whether or not it was it breach of the procurement law. Clearly, Nigerians are interested in knowing the approving authority considering that the amount involved ordinarily exceed ministerial approval limits. It would be interesting to know if the purchases were done with the approval of the President or the Federal Executive Council.

None of these of course compare with the most bizarre rationalisation by Fola Akinkuotu, the Director General of NCAA at the so-called press conference in Abuja last week. Now, the NCAA-DG does not know the cost of the armoured vehicle; yet he affirms that “the cars are operational vehicles used in the various operations of the NCAA in transporting the minister and aviation related foreign dignitaries as part of its operations”.

Armoured vehicles to transport the minister and visiting foreign dignitaries? What rules under the IATA protocol mandates NCAA to provide bullet-proof vehicles to visiting dignitaries? What else does the NCAA chief know? Has he ever heard about ministerial approval limits? By the way, how did the NCAA pull off the transaction in the absence of a functional board? Were the processes done under the sole authority of the minister?

I think the aviation industry is in more trouble than we can even begin to imagine.

So where do we go from here? Those expecting a tremor will be disappointed as nothing will happen; not to a member of the Amazon-triumvirate at the drivers’ seat of the Jonathan administration. As sure as daylight, the hysteria will peter out until another expensive distraction surfaces to engage us. That’s how it’s always been. That is how it would remain.